Nearly 75% of school districts in N.C. report they don't have a sustainable funding source to maintain their fleet of computers, including student devices like Chromebooks. North Carolina public schools collectively spent more than $6.6 million last school year to repair broken computers.
That's according to a new report, the first of its kind, by the Department of Public Instruction that was presented to the State Board of Education Thursday.
"It's very important to lift this report up because it is designed to make us have better decisions about what we're doing with technology, particularly in a time when budgets are tighter than ever," said Vanessa Wrenn, the department's chief information officer.
The "break/fix report" sought to calculate the total cost of a device beyond its purchase price. Public schools were asked to tally how many repairs they've made on laptops, desktops, tablets, and interactive panels, and calculate how often those repairs are covered by warranty.
It found that about 60% of schools' computer repairs were not under warranty. Student laptops were the most likely to need repairs, and the least likely to still be covered by warranty.
School districts purchased many of those devices using one-time federal funds during the pandemic, and now struggle to find funding to maintain them. North Carolina public schools spend an average of $441 per device for their students' and staff's computers, factoring in the total cost of repairs over a device's life cycle.
When accounting for charter schools, lab schools, and regional schools, more than half of all public school units say they don't have a dependable funding source to keep replacing those broken computers.
"They know what needs to be replaced, but they're always waiting on local government decisions and other avenues to figure out how to refresh their devices," said Matthew Mayo, director of DPI's Office of Digital Learning and School Connectivity.
His office is recommending that the state allocate recurring funding for schools to refresh their devices on a regular cycle, to reduce the number of devices that stay in use beyond the manufacturer warranties. The report is also intended to inform school boards as they make decisions about how to spend their local funds on technology.
State board of education member Olivia Oxendine asked if the next annual report could provide more detail on the repair rates for student devices by elementary, middle and high school levels.
"That could influence even decisions at the school level in terms of how much time do we need to apportion to device instruction versus face-to-face instruction," Oxendine said.
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